Is reading celebrity gossip magazines wrong?

  • Thread starter Thread starter stina
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

stina

Guest
This may be an odd question but I’m just curious. Although we all get sick of Britney and Paris and whatever they’re doing, is it morally ok to read about celebrities and their lives? cause gossip is considered unacceptable. I don’t mean necessarily indulging in and becoming obsessed with their lives, just picking up a magazine while you’re getting your hair done, or when your waiting in line at the store. Or watching Entertainment Tonight.
Thanks! 🙂
 
It’s not a mortal sin in itself. They’re public figures so there can be reports about their activities. In some cases though, the reports are untrue and are sinful gossip and that’s where it could hurt us to read it.

I’m always tempted to read the covers of magazines to find out what Britney is doing this week. I watch ET once in a while also. It’s ok if we’re interested in the people – but if we’re just curious about the sins that people fell into without really caring about them or being sad about their drunkeness or lustful behaviors – then our conscience grows colder.

I just try to remind myself that life is very short and we need to use every minute we can for the best possible things. For entertainment, we should look for the best quality things – to enrich ourselves with a greater sense of God’s beauty.

I try to do a little penance while waiting in line and not look at the magazines. I do think some of the headlines are sinful – especially the sexual headlines they put on some of the women’s magazines. It ruins innocence.
 
They are entertainers. We have no buisness knowing the ins and out of everything about their lives. If it flashes on the news or somethoing you have no choice, but to pick up a magazine that you know is going to go into the details about their lives. That’s gossip.
 
stina said:
This may be an odd question but I’m just curious. Although we all get sick of Britney and Paris and whatever they’re doing, is it morally ok to read about celebrities and their lives? cause gossip is considered unacceptable. I don’t mean necessarily indulging in and becoming obsessed with their lives, just picking up a magazine while you’re getting your hair done, or when your waiting in line at the store. Or watching Entertainment Tonight.
Thanks! 🙂
Click to expand...
If my goal is to be pleasing to God, which would you think God would prefer, a magazine which supports a perverse lifestyle, secularism, moral degradation, “gossip” or perhaps a Christian book or magazine? So, you forgot your Christian magazine, is reading the gossip a sin? Not if you really forgot, if you were embarrassed however… well, there’s a different story. What do you think?
 
stina said:
This may be an odd question but I’m just curious. Although we all get sick of Britney and Paris and whatever they’re doing, is it morally ok to read about celebrities and their lives? cause gossip is considered unacceptable. I don’t mean necessarily indulging in and becoming obsessed with their lives, just picking up a magazine while you’re getting your hair done, or when your waiting in line at the store. Or watching Entertainment Tonight.
Thanks! 🙂
Click to expand...
Yes!!! Maybe not sinful but wrong in the respect that they are sooo not worth reading or writing about… I never did get the fascination for reading gossip about movie stars or any other public figure. And the number one thing that really gets me about movie stars in general… who made their opinion count? I mean really… just because they are famous, they are an expert in child rearing, politics, religion, conservation …etc? I don’t think so!
 
I dunno…

When in the Doctor’s office, I usually read through People Magazine or some other tripe. Some of the stuff in there is just mindless drivel and if one expects such from those magazines and perhaps sees how sad and empty the lives of many of the so-called “beautiful” people really are, I can’t see why it would be wrong.

I recall reading in one of those magazines that one of the name-brand actors, Russell Crowe, was going to get baptized because his kids or baby was baptized…or something to that effect.

Whether or not it was true or if it was the proper rationalle for getting baptized 🤷 …but, sometimes the Lord works in ways we don’t understand.

On the flip side, if such magazines cause one to put celibrities up on a pedistal…yeah, they’re probably wrong. 👍
 
Why would one even care about Hollywood or its “stars?” 🤷

Prayers and petitions,
Alexius:cool:
 
I sometimes catch myself checking out the pictures and reading the headlines of those trash rags while waiting in line…there’s not much else to look at. I too, feel quilty about it. The next time that happens however, I’m going to pray for whoever’s on the cover. Lord knows they probably need it in some way or another, or they wouldn’t be on there. Thanks for asking that question…it helped me out a lot to consider.
 
I don’t think it is wrong but I prefer not to waste my time with it.
 
stina said:
This may be an odd question but I’m just curious. Although we all get sick of Britney and Paris and whatever they’re doing, is it morally ok to read about celebrities and their lives? cause gossip is considered unacceptable. I don’t mean necessarily indulging in and becoming obsessed with their lives, just picking up a magazine while you’re getting your hair done, or when your waiting in line at the store. Or watching Entertainment Tonight.
Thanks! 🙂
Click to expand...
i used to be like this reading celb mag. i felt very dirty after wards it make me feel wrong for what i had done . now i stop and am a lot happy in my self . there hope for us all
 
stina said:
This may be an odd question but I’m just curious. Although we all get sick of Britney and Paris and whatever they’re doing, is it morally ok to read about celebrities and their lives? cause gossip is considered unacceptable. I don’t mean necessarily indulging in and becoming obsessed with their lives, just picking up a magazine while you’re getting your hair done, or when your waiting in line at the store. Or watching Entertainment Tonight.
Thanks! 🙂
Click to expand...
its gets me true the night
u no what i saying:thumbsup:
 
I must admit I buy my wife a people magazine every once in a while she loves it. Then again if I’m really nice I’ll get her a soap opera digest mag. That must be the most useless mag, but she likes it. Its entertainment, not lust or gossip. These stars want the coverage, how else would we know where they will be. Most lead very shallow lives and we should pray for them.
 
I’m another person that doesn’t get the celebrity gossip obsession some people have. Not that I won’t watch segements about it on TV, because if a celebrity segement pops up when I’m otherwise watching a news network, I listen. That’s why when I’m busy working or writing, I turn CNN or MSNBC or FOX News on if I’m not interested in listening to music or a specfic show/movie, to keep updated.

But seriously…do I really care what these people do with their lives when they’re not writing, singing, acting or otherwise entertaining me? They have one purpose in my life…to provide entertainment. Period. I can think of much better people to read about if you’re looking for inspiration.

Oh, and when I’m in the doctor’s office or getting my hair done, I always grab Good Housekeeping or something along those lines. There’s actually useful things in those magazines, unlike the tripe of such types as “Cosmo” or “Vanity Fair”. Blech. :rolleyes:
 
A lot of tabloid headlines are purposely misleading… and here’s a recent example.

I used be a HUGE Garth Brooks fan (still like his music, most of it) and was very saddened that his marriage to his first wife didn’t work out because I thought it was a great testimony to working things out instead of heading to court. Anyway, a recent headline said that his current marriage (to Trisha Yearwood) was in “crisis” and that his ex-wife was “caught in the middle”.

Okay, I admit it, I read the article. Guess what? The “crisis” was that there had been some tension regarding Garth’s daughters acceptance of Trisha BEFORE they were married. Not an unusual thing with children of divorce, as I understand it. He apparently made it clear that if it came down to a choice between a life with Trisha and his daughters’ happiness, he would side with his daughters and end the relationship. His ex-wife being “caught in the middle” turned out to be that she had never talked bad about Trisha to the girls and counseled them to give her a chance.

Not half as lurid as the headline suggested. And the events all took place BEFORE he remarried, which meant that the news was, what? A couple years old? I thought it meant that he had decided he truly loved his ex-wife after all and that his marriage to Trisha was on the rocks as a result.

So, who knows just how true any of that tripe really is anyway? My biggest peeve about these birdcage liners is how they just LOVE to slap photos of celebrities’ cellulite on the front cover. Honestly, who wants to look at that anyway?

But did anyone catch the headline on the final issue of “News of the World”? “Buy it today, sell it on eBay tomorrow!”

The sad thing is, a lot of people probably did!
 
I guess it may not always be wrong, but I disapprove of Hollywood and what it stands for. Actually, I hate Hollywood and refuse to watch the shows about celebrities on tv. They are worshipped by many young people the world around and it leads them to not thinking they are good enough…Just my perspective.

Prayers and Petitions,
Alexius:cool:
 
stina said:
This may be an odd question but I’m just curious. Although we all get sick of Britney and Paris and whatever they’re doing, is it morally ok to read about celebrities and their lives? cause gossip is considered unacceptable. I don’t mean necessarily indulging in and becoming obsessed with their lives, just picking up a magazine while you’re getting your hair done, or when your waiting in line at the store. Or watching Entertainment Tonight.
Thanks! 🙂
Click to expand...
Personally, I think that it is none of my business what is up in their personal lives. I don’t feel that I have a “right” to know how messed up these peoples lives are. I feel really sorry for them too.

By the way, here is a link to an excellent article about the dangers of gossip.
crosswalk.com/blogs/DBurchett/11541711/
 
I agree with those who say that you could do other things with your time. I liked the suggestion of doing some penitential prayer while waiting to get your hair done or something. Doing a rosary is a great idea.

I was somewhat disappointed when I went to a prayer group at church and some of the older ladies (um… I’d say 30s to mid 40s) were talking about the latest news about Britney Spears. I was thinking, “Are you REALLY paying attention to this?” If anything, since her life is so sad, we should pray for her rather than get caught up in the latest details of her bad turns…
 
What are your emotions when you read scandalous reports about what these celebrities do and say in public? Sorrow over the offense to God or “I thank God that I am not like this …”? It’s hard enough to avoid this information, and the resulting temptation, without the gossip magazines. They might qualify as the near occasion of sins of pride.
 
Mother Angelica (of EWTN) is one of my very favorite “voices” in the Catholic Church. She is a very wise lady. Very orthodox… in her teachings about Church morality, etc. And according to Mother… these types of magazines are sinful.

I’m not sure if a person commits a sin by picking one up, and flipping through it. But the point is… WHY would you WANT to? When there is so much material in this type of magazine that could potentially scandalize a good Christian (or Jewish, or Muslim… etc.) person. That, plus the fact that when we do look at and read them… we are really listening to (ok, reading… actually) pure gossip. That’s why they’re called gossip magazines. I think that is a sin.

We don’t bring them into our home at all. Nor do we waste time with them, in grocery store lines. 😃 Hope this helps.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top